[pct-l] A day in the life on the PCT...

Dave and I had started our day a couple miles before Kennedy Hot Springs on
an
unnamed creek  coming off the west side of Glacier Peak.  The night before
I'd
wanted to stop at Chetwot Creek but Dave was in a manic phase and wanted to
make
sure we were where we thought we were as the trail had been in thick forest
for
miles.

There are times on the trail when you're hiking with someone else when
you're
tired, thirsty, and ready to stop, and they aren't.  He wasn't and I was.  I
felt the "flash of fire" in my chest, signalling a major "screw it, do what
you
want."

I opened up to whatever peaceful center I had and let out a big breath as I
stared through the trees at the deep blue sky, and let it  go.  I sighed and
said OK, let's just do it.  Dave, realizing  he'd won, looked a little
guilty,
but not guilty enough to stop.  We hiked another three quarters of a mile to
a
lovely unnamed creek.  I thought about relationships, obsessions, The
Eternal,
my own tiredness, and listened to "The Ants go Marching One by One" in my
head
as I walked.  Dave said he was satisfied we were where we thought we were.
That
was enough for him to mellow out and set up camp.  I used my capitulation to
his
madness to get him to do all the camp chores.

I took a bath in the quart and a half cooking pot, making sure I didn't get
soapy residue near the stream.  Nothing like the feeling of glacier water
numbing the skull to the degree that teeth ache.  We'd started near Stevens
Pass
four days before or so, when it was 90 degrees in the shade.  After the
first
couple hours when we crested our first pass, we came upon a guy lying in the
middle of the trail with one woman doing CPR and the other breathing into
his
lungs.  They'd been at this two hours.  We'd met a fellow at the trailhead
who
had stopped another car with a cell phone.  A couple minutes after we
arrived a
helicopter landed and the search and rescue people descended on our little
group.  The first guy to reach us asked how the patient was and the ladies
explained they'd been giving CPR for two hours.  The guy relaxed and looked
a
little disgusted.  No one to save.  Just a body to transport.  Dave and left
the
merry scene feeling just a bit spooked.  Hot and sweaty already, and a dead
guy
on the trail.

It had been getting increasingly cooler, but was still in the 60s.
Beautiful
hiking weather if we stayed hydrated enough.  But the sweat and dirt
quotient
made washing mandatory if I didn't want to hike with a rash between my
rubbing
thighs and under my arms.  I found out on this trip that with age the skin
loses
something important, and I now had to pay attention to being dirty and
sweaty,
where just a couple years earlier I never had to wash...

The next day's hike was utterly spectacular.  It was cool hiking up Kennedy
Ridge, and the flowers were out in abundant, magnificent and awesome
profusion.
You could kneel and put your eyes at flower height and almost no green would
show, just a sea of color.  The trail was pretty contoured and views beyond
description.  I spent much of the day slowing down to a stop and waking up
to
the fact I was standing in the midst of pure beauty.

The climb up to Fire Creek Pass warranted more stops, and I did.  Dave, with
his
quarter to half mile an hour faster pace than I was usually out of sight.
That's the way we hiked.  I only resented being slower when he'd jump up as
I
walked up to h im and put his pack on, chomping at the proverbial bit to get
on.  I'd wave my hand at the trail and say, "Just Go!"

The north side of Fire Creek Pass was almost completely snow covered.  The
trail
hooked to the left and traversed gently down an almost vertical mud and rock
ridge for a hundred yards or so before loosing steepness.  The trail
switchbacked to the right, and the left again before heading down the
glacially
carved basin.  About 100' from the top of the pass was a snowbank that was
nearly vertical.  We survey the scene and decided we could make it across
this
bank and the one another 50' further on.  It involved kicking steps in the
snow
and digging in with hands, sidling across the 20' bank facing the bank, pack
hanging out over the rocks below.

We got across the first snowbank and hiked the 50' or so to the next.  It
was
just too vertical.  I tried to kick a step but it felt too risky, too
dangerous,
to stupid to do.  I was disgusted with us.  I'd suggested going up the ridge
and
around this section, climbing on boulders but Dave thought we could make it
and
I didn't care enough to argue.  I also thought we could do it, but it would
be
taking more risk than I liked.  But I couldn't blame Dave, as much as I
wanted.
I'd concurred in the choice of routes.

The only option was to go straight up a mostly wet mud slope and then
traverse
across mud and rocks above the snowbank.  I didn't think about what a stupid
situation we were in.  I just felt disgusted that we had to go up the mud.
I
took off my pack, which was a feat in itself as I was standing on a small
outcrop and leaning up against the bank.  I put my body on the earth,
reached
up, and started to crawl/climb up the 20' to safety.  This was about the
stupidist thing I'd done backpacking in a long while.  It ranked right up
there
being bored hitchhiking out of Yosemite Valley in 1969.  I decided since no
tourist was going to pick up two long haired, very dirty 18 year olds I
would
climb the 50' face across the road.  I got about 20' up after planning the
route
and got stuck at the end of a 1" wide crack running 45 degrees right to
left.  I
was six inches from a good hand hold, and the only thing to do was leap for
the
handhold and fall to the scree below, or head down the way I'd come.  I went
down, cursing my idiocy, vowing never to do something so arrogant and asnine
again.  Well, here I was, on the verge of slipping down mud to decent sized
boulders beneath me.

I made it of course, just doing it, not thinking or feeling the underlying
self-disgust for being in that situation.  I sat down on the little ledge
I'd
aimed for and looked down at Dave.  I took out the 1/4" food bag rope and
unrolled it down to him.  I hauled up my pack and then Dave tied the rope to
the
haul strap on his.  While he was trying to tie off the rope I got out the
trusty
olympus xa-2 and took a couple pictures of him, one of which was of him
complaining about having to stand there with his face in the mud while I
took
pictures so I could humiliate him at parties when we got back.  I hauled his
pack up and he held onto the rope with one hand and climbed up to me.  I was
tempted to release the tension, but didn't.

The hike down from Fire Creek Pass, past Mica Lake, which was still mostly
frozen at the end of July, was beautiful and beautifully uneventful.  We
hiked
down the switchbacks on the Milk Creek Canyon Wall to Milk Creek where we
had
planned to spend the night.  It was the only flat spot for a couple miles in
any
direction, including down, the way we didn't want to go.  It was the worst
campsite of the trip.  It was an avalanche slope that the creek raged
through,
with six foot high brush.  There was a bridge (at that time) across the
creek.
We scouted around, realizing we were going to have to camp on sand/mud for
the
night.  Clouds were building too.  There was a flat spot 30' or so off the
trail
up the creek Dave put his tent up on while I pitched my ground cloth to fall
asleep with the stars.

We ate dinner and bagged food, toothpaste, repellant, etc., and Dave hung it
from the bridge.  He came back a bit bemused.  He'd met a guy and his
girlfriend
who had hiked up from the Suiattle River Trailhead up Milk Creek.  They were
planning to do the 30 mile loop, up milk creek, hang a left on the PCT, and
when
it crosses the Suiattle River Trail, back to the trailhead in two days.
They'd
made it about six miles.  And, the only food they'd brought were six
Whoppers...  Apparently the guy kept assuring his girlfriend they would be
fine,
they'd make it, and they weren't turning back.  We sacked out and two hours
later I threw my stuff in Dave's tent because it started to rain, which it
did
for the next three days...

It was a good day, wrought with danger and disgust, beauty and more beauty.
A
good day on the PCT.  Yep, a good day.

Jeffrey Olson
Laramie Wyoming, where it's clear, 13 degrees, and a windchill to -3...

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==============================================================================
To:            "Jeffrey Olson" <jjolson@uwyo.edu>
Cc:            <pct-l@backcountry.net>